Black Hole (Super Massive)
by uthot
Summary: Oh, man, oh jeez! Morty's in college now and Rick can't stay away forever, you know? He might as well check up on the little motherfucker. It'll be fine, anyway. Morty doesn't remember him - Rick made sure of that. this is c137cest, rickxmorty, etc. etc.
1. Let's Not Kid Ourselves, It's Exposition

**AN: yea this is my first story so... I'm sorry. ill update frequently but theyre gonna be just as short as this one. and oh yeah this is rick x morty, did I mention that? yea I know, fuck off**

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Chapter 1

Rick tipped back his bottle of Glipliq and let the remainder burn a trail down his throat and come to settle in his stomach. When the last drop was gone he tossed the empty bottle over his shoulder, letting it crash somewhere in the corner of his tiny, hardly furnished apartment. Glipliq was the best shit. The drunk it gave was akin to the feeling of napping atop one of the frothy pink clouds of Zordon 9.

He returned to the task at hand. Swaying slightly, he adjusted the output reach knob on the cable box and screwed a smaller, green crystal next to the large pink-purple one that allowed for regular interdimensional cable. This would allow for him to not only view television on a multiversal scale, but locate and observe the actions of any Morty in existence as well through satellite renderings and things of the sort. However, he was only interested in watching one Morty - his Morty. It had been far too long since he'd seen him.

Rick finished the final adjustments and went to connect the wires and launch the newly improved interdimensional transmitter - or as he liked to call it, the _Morty Watcher._ He gracelessly stumbled backwards onto the torn, black imitation leather sofa, remote in hand, and flicked on the TV. A channel came on with a gaggle of what appeared to be sentient snowballs giggling and flinging balls of compressed gore at one another while a flurry of blood droplets came from the sky.

"Oh - god dammit - " Rick mumbled, and switched the input with the remote. Now there was a panicked looking Morty on the screen trying to defuse a neutrino bomb as a Rick snored in the background with his pants off. Rick rolled his eyes and flicked the channel to C-137.

His Morty was hunched over a desk, surrounded by various books and papers. He was whispering something inarticulate, alternating between writing in a notebook and looking confusedly at a math textbook. From his mussed hair to the puffy circles under his eyes, paired with the fact it appeared to be nighttime as his only light was that of a desk light, it seemed he had been at it for quite a time now.

Rick watched on drunkenly, enraptured by the sight of his Morty. It had been years - holy shit, it had been _four years_ since he'd last seen the kid. Now he was in college. The little dummy had made it into fucking college. Not that that was much of a step up from high school.

This went on for a number of minutes. Morty scribbled and murmured and occasionally grasped locks of his curly hair in a frustrated gesture, while Rick watched with a familiar hole in his chest. He couldn't help it. If there was one thing a Rick was actually affected by - well, _this_ Rick, in any case - it was Morty. They'd been through too much together. Knew too much about one another.

Eventually, Rick sighed and switched the television off. Morty's image gave way to the black reflection of Rick's disheveled appearance. Around him he could see the numerous empty bottles of liquor and beer, the peeling wallpaper, the tattered mattress without a cover in the back. The corner of his mouth crooked wryly. Home sweet home was here, in his shitty apartment on the planet Tychron. Despite its badass sounding name, it was the toilet of this galaxy. It was pretty impressive how they managed to push all of the ghetto onto only one of its planets.

He stumbled over to the fridge, grabbed a beer and popped the cap off with his new gold tooth. It was where his canine was. He had to get the new tooth because he broke his actual canine opening a beer with it.

He would keep an eye on Morty from time to time, he decided. It took a monumental weight off his shoulders to know that he was doing well, studying and shit, probably banging a chick here and there. Doing regular college stuff. Maybe he even got drunk. Rick snorted. Hopefully he wouldn't succumb to his alcoholic genetic makeup. It was like the Sanchez family had liquor coded in their proteins.

He flopped down on the stained mattress, groaning when he landed right on the broken spring. He finished his beer, tossed it, and closed his eyes. He managed to sleep alright this time.

* * *

Morty groaned and let his head fall on the table with a _thunk._ It was at the point in the semester where the professors decided that that was enough fucking around and it was time to really buckle down and teach. His physics class was difficult enough, yeah, but at least he could do the work. Calculus was another thing. He hated it. The only reason he was doing it to begin with was because you can't do the science he wanted to without it.

Morty himself wasn't even sure why he wanted to be an astronomer. It was perhaps one of the most mind-bending sciences, fraught with math at every turn. This also came with the assurance he would be selling his soul to the universe, its origin, and the eventual fate of it, because careers in that field weren't exactly flexible. Most of the rest of his life would likely be work, work, calculations, the occasional discovery, and more work. Regardless, he was inexplicably drawn to the cosmos and planets and fabric of space with a kind of ferocity he rarely felt about anything else. The way he was placed in spacetime he often felt very conscious of - like the breath of the universe whispered to him secretly. Sometimes, when he was just on the verge of sleep at night with the weight of his blanket on his chest, he felt as though he was flying through the air - slowly, then quickly, up and up through the night sky towards the stars. He always fell asleep before he could go farther. It was in small moments like these that he felt _whole._ He couldn't remember many other times he did.

Morty sighed and forced himself to lift his head and resume attempting to solve the rest of his homework. Tomorrow was Friday, so the whole assignment for the week was due, and of course he had procrastinated. He had a lot of work to finish.

 _It'll all be worth it,_ Morty thought, chewing the eraser on the end of his pencil absently. _Maybe NASA will want me one day._

Two and a half hours later, Morty was just about done with his work when the door slammed open and Julian waltzed in. "What's good M?" He caught sight of Morty's predicament and laughed. "Put off your homework again, huh?"

Morty smiled at him, embarrassed. "Yeah, n - not that it's anything new. I'm almost done though."

"That's good," Julian said, then proceeded to fall face first on his bed, closest to the door. He let a muffled groan of happiness escape.

Julian was a weird kid. He was tall, skinny, and always overdressed. His family hailed from South Korea, where he grew up until he moved to Seattle when he was six. He was a total music kid, his interests ranging all the way from playing the violin (which pissed Morty off to no end) to DJing. All he ate was shit from the Asian store a few blocks away (or hot cheetos), and he often tried to force Morty to try whatever he was eating or drinking (which Morty did - sometimes it was delicious, other times it was frighteningly strange to him). It didn't take Morty long at all to warm up to him though, thank God, because it would've been unbearably awkward to be roommates with someone he didn't like in the tiny space of the shared dorm room. Julian had been nothing but friendly to him from the beginning, and Morty was grateful for that.

"Long day?" Morty asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Julian responded with another groan, then begrudgingly lifted his head. "Let's get fucking wrecked tomorrow night."

Morty snorted. "A hard day indeed."

"I'm serious Morty. I know we go out drinking every weekend, but tomorrow is gonna be huge. I'm gonna _make_ it huge. We're not gonna remember our own names for the next three days, bro." He wiggled his eyebrows at Morty. "This might be your chance to get laid too."

"W - what, Madison doesn't count as a lay?"

"That was like, what - three weeks ago? This is college, baby!" Julian flung a pillow at Morty, narrowly missing and hitting a world map on the wall right in the middle of Africa.

"Jesus, dude! Chill out, damn. You know I'm always down to get fucked up with you," Morty smirked. "But I'm not gonna feel good about it if I - I don't actually get my fucking schoolwork done. So, you know." Morty reached down to chuck the pillow back at him. It hit Julian right in his face, to which he _oompf'd._

"Alright buddy, you got it! Finish that shit and get some sleep cause we're going aaalll night tomorrow, baby. Anyway I'm going to sleep. Night!" Julian wrestled himself out of his tight black jeans (probably designer) and immediately assumed the likeness of a corpse. Morty knew he'd be out in a matter of minutes.

What a freak. But he was sure fun to drink with.

Morty resumed the last few problems of his homework with renewed vigor, happy at the prospect of letting go for another night.


	2. More Exposition

Morty took a grim sip of his coffee (a small vanilla latte) as he set out for his first class of the morning - Physics 202. It was only ninety minutes long, so it really wasn't bad when you looked at it. That is, if you weren't like Morty, where anything and everything school related equalled bad. Or tiring. Or aggravating. Or made you wanna blow your brains out. Or -

"Hey Morty!" A petite woman with short, strawberry blonde hair was jogging up to Morty, awkwardly darting through the flow of people with the occasional "sorry" when she got too close to someone. Morty smiled and stopped to let her catch up.

"Morning, Abbie. Ready for - for some good ol' morning science?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah, every day. Can I have some of that?" Abbie asked, gesturing to the coffee cup. Morty passed it to her wordlessly and she took a few grateful chugs, spluttering as she handed it back.

"Oh God, I scalded myself," she choked and struggled for a moment to regain her composure. She seemed unimpressed by Morty's laughter.

"So! I hear we're going out tonight with the gang," she said with a sly, green-eyed glance. Morty gaped at her.

"How did - Julian was passed out the entire time I was with him after we made those plans. Is he - I mean, is he a wizard or - or something?"

Abbie shrugged nonchalantly. "Fuck if I know. You know he's always tryna get something happening one way or another." They were inside the lecture hall now, along with a good fifty or so students. "I can't fucking wait. I got some shit already." She wiggled her eyebrows.

Morty smirked at her. "You're always so prepared, Abs."

"Oh, Jesus," she shuddered, and the movement looked huge on her small frame. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that? This isn't, like, some cutesy fucking sitcom, dude." With that thought, they took their seats and waited for the lecture on electromagnetic fields to begin. The professor was this redhead MILF that Morty was rather fond of. Made it kind of difficult to pay attention to the material, though.

After an hour and a half of powerpoint slides, the two were free to go.

"That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Abbie asked Morty with a playful smile.

"Nah, I kinda like the concept of electromagnetic fields a - anyway. I mean, they heat up my hot pocket, that's good in my book."

Abbie rolled her eyes, smiling. "What more do you need?" It was time for them to go to their next classes - Morty had Calculus, and Abbie had Anatomy or something like that. "Later Morty, I'm gonna call you tonight!"

"Okay, bye!"

Morty had to walk outside across the lawn to get to his class. Of course it was fucking freezing, it being the start of winter in Seattle. At least it hadn't rained much lately. He shivered and pulled the strings of his hoodie tighter. Regardless of the occasional shit weather, Morty liked Seattle. There were pine and evergreen trees everywhere, the people minded their own business, and no one raised in the city would blink an eye at someone being gay or trans… usually. It was nice. He felt at peace here. He was glad the University of Washington had such a kickass science program, too. He might even stay in the city after he graduated - although he always dreaded the thought of staying in one place too long, if he had to, this is where he'd stay. Still, though. He'd like to travel.

Morty finally made it to the other building, sighing in relief as the warm air from inside rushed into his shivering body. He wondered where he'd ever go if he were to travel, or move around a lot. There were a lot of amazing places on the planet, sure. But… God, it just didn't seem like enough. There was something very… isolated about the idea. You can only go so many places, right?

Morty shrugged and went into his math class.

Rick moaned, carefully rotated his joints, feeling them crack and pop as he rose like a zombie from his bed. The red-orange sun shone through his windows, appearing to set the white walls of his apartment aflame with its glow. It was very quiet. Rick got up and shuffled to take a shower.

When he was finished, and wearing the cleanest clothes he could find, he went back to the Morty Watcher. He was all too aware of the fact that he could easily become obsessed with watching Morty - it had been so long since he'd seen him. It felt like doing heroin after being four years clean and not knowing what to do next - forget about the lapse, or fall back into the addiction.

But fuck it. That's what Rick said when he was addicted to heroin.

So he flipped on the TV once more. It was still on his Morty's channel. At the moment, he appeared to be staring vacantly at the front of a classroom where a thirty or so man with glasses was scribbling formulas across a whiteboard deftly. It seemed to be the same mind numbing math shit Morty was having an aneurysm over last night.

Rick scoffed and got up to refill his flask for the night. Apparently, Morty was just as much of a boring nerd as ever, just slightly more educated. Rick had to admit, he never expected Morty to be able to even approach a calculus level of math. That in itself was very… unMorty-like. Rick could admit that he was slightly impressed by that. No matter the fact that seven year old Rick was doing the same math - he wasn't even on the charts compared to other people.

Rick sighed. Good for him. Maybe the little fucker will actually pull in a decent salary in his mediocre future.

Rick left the TV running as he locked up and headed to The Drinchron, his favorite bar on the planet, intent on cleansing his mind.

Morty let himself exhale in relief when calculus was finally over. It was getting harder each day in that class to stay focused.

However, his demeanor soon grew lighter as it did every time he stepped into his final class, Intro to Cosmology. Although his professor was a creaky old man with a penchant for breaking out into a coughing fit every now and then, it couldn't bother Morty. Often, the only time Morty could even tell it was an advanced college class was by the constant influx of new information. Most of the time it seemed closer to him like an enchanting story his mother read him when he was little, a never-ending tale of fantasies beyond even a child's imaginings. It felt as though he himself was a star that burned with bright, scorching passion. Sometimes he felt more like a lone rock hurtling through empty space, a quiet but peaceful observer to those incomprehensible dreams.

Morty figured this was how everyone felt about their passions. Writing a poem, performing a dance routine, dusting off a skull in a desert, hell, even solving a complicated formula he was sure must bring someone out there this kind of explicit joy. He was grateful to know exactly what he loved with such clarity. Surely, some people don't even know themselves that well.

Morty did. He felt like he always has.

Smiling to himself and sitting next to a pretty Latina girl, he settled in for the lecture on primordial background radiation.

A while after the end of class when Morty was getting over his post-educational high by drinking a smoothie (strawberry banana) and wandering the grounds aimlessly, his phone buzzed and he answered it to Julian's voice.

"Hey loser, we going or what?"

"Now?" Morty asked incredulously, and pulled the phone away from his ear to check the time. He brought it back. "It's only three-thirty, dude."

"Uhhh… has that ever stopped us before?"

Morty sucked more of his smoothie up through the straw thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Only on weeknights. Let's get something to eat first."

"Right on. We'll meet up with Abbie and Tisha later, fuck if I wanna eat with them right now. Abbie's been pissing me off kinda lately. I'll tell ya'bout it later. Meet me… well, I'm kinda broke. Wanna meet me at like, the Burger Place? Down on 55th?"

Morty chuckled. "S - sure Julian, I'll see you in like fifteen?"

"Yup, seeya!" Morty hung up and smirked with a devilish smoothie-sip. Hell yes. Time to get fucked up.


	3. Rum and Coke

"Anyway, it's just kind of annoying, you know? Like, I get we fucked and all, but you don't own me. We're in college. Everyone should know by now sex isn't automatically equal to… anything, really." Julian took a bite out of his double cheeseburger. Morty watched a drop of ketchup fall and splatter on the table as he nodded.

"I feel you, man. And you didn't do anything to - to make her think it was anything different, yeah?"

"No!" Julian exclaimed. "That's the thing that's actually annoying me! I made it pretty fuckin' clear beforehand that it didn't mean anything at all. I get being you know, maybe a little confused otherwise, but…" he shook his head in defeat. "Abbie's just being weird."

"Yeah, it's not really fair. She - she can't get mad at you for not being to kick it all - all the time, every day."

"Yeah." Julian rolled his eyes as Morty took a bite of his own burger which he had meticulously placed french fries on. That shit tasted good as hell. "Anyway. It's not that big a deal. You know? I still love the girl, I just - ugh. Whatever. Hopefully shit will be cool with all of us tonight. That's what getting wasted is aaalll about."

Morty laughed and shot Julian a look. "Isn't that how you guys hooked up in the first place?" He laughed again when the realization dawned on Julian's face. "W - what if you're all horny tonight and it happens again with her?"

Julian had a mix of worry and amusement on his face. "I really… don't know, bro… aha. Guess I'll have to exercise what little self control I have." He looked dreamy now. "But she's so fucking hot dude… that ass… and her cute little face, God! I wanna… fuckin'... defile that face."

"Hahaha, dude. This is what I'm talkin' about," Morty said with a smirk.

Julian snapped out of his trance and sighed. "I know, I know. You're right. Let's just go get fucked up man. I'll call Abs and Tisha."

"Wooo!" Morty cheered. "Let's go to the Unicorn, in Cap Hill? Their drinks are fucking - just amazing."

"Hell yea! Come on."

When Rick tilted his head back to really get that K-Lax up his nose, he realized just how fucked up he was when it looked like the little yellow lamps hanging from the ceiling were shaking from an earthquake.

Well, that's fine. He felt fucking awesome. Cocaine from planet Earth, Hurnieen leaves from the Ib-La'ant galaxy - none of it compared to Kalaxian crystals. It was all of that shit put together, then times a million, cut with blue meth. Fucking. Awesome.

Rick sucked in through his left nostril again, plugging the right. The drip in the back of his throat was disgusting, tasted kind of like engine coolant or something, but he was used to it. Enjoyed it, even.

"Damn, you weren't kiddin' old man," the glob of translucent blue goo next to him buzzed appreciatively. The goo creature just stuck an appendage on his own pile of crystal and absorbed it through his… whatever. Rick didn't really know what the fuck kind of alien he was, but he was pretty chill.

"When it comes to this shit, I don't play," Rick smirked. The goo vibrated, emitting a high-pitched kind of sound (a laugh?), and they clinked their glasses together.

Morty threw his shot back with the rest of them and giggled. He let the burn wash its way through him as he stumbled back a step.

Tisha busted out laughing at him, doubling over and whipping Morty with her multitude of braids in the process. "You're drunk, motherfucker."

"Yeeeeaahh," Morty said, and all four of them fell into a fit of laughter. "Not enough thoouugghh. Lez - let's just - buy a bottle… of champagne, fuck."

"I like the sound of that," Abbie grinned.

They were in the least lit part of the bar, hidden in the shadows of the back. Luckily it was a Friday night and Capitol Hill was the place to party in Seattle, so their belligerence went unnoticed. It was convenient because they could do as much blow as they wanted as long as they were somewhat sly about it.

Speaking of that. "Let's do another line firrsstt," Tisha said, her blown out pupils dancing with light.

"Yeah losers, whoever takes the biggne - biggest one doesnnn't have to put up on the bottle," Julian slurred. He was probably the most trashed out of all of them.

"Oh you know it'll be meee, why even say thu - that," Morty said with a devilish look.

"Bitch, the fuck? You know that'll be me, the fuck are you talking about?" Tisha got in his face real quick with a challenging look.

"Ohhhh shit," Abbie giggled.

"Let's go, Mortimer," Tisha teased.

Damn, she really said that.

"Ohhhhh SHIT."

"She DIDN'T, oh my God Morty, you just gonna take that?"

Julian and Abbie couldn't stop laughing. Morty just narrowed his eyes at Tisha's evil look.

"Wow. You're fucking doooone. Let's do this shit."

Rick finally decided to turn in early for the night, seeing as his eyes couldn't focus on anything for more than three seconds at a time. He got the name of the alien he was kicking it with (immediately forgotten before he set foot outside the bar) and went to stumble home with his lit cigarette, an unfortunate on and off habit that was currently on.

He walked into his apartment, cig still lit, and fell onto the ground. This was a pretty common entrance for him, so he just kinda laid there for a second before propping himself up on one elbow and flicking the TV on. Another dirty habit to feed his addictive personality. As if there wasn't enough of that.

Rick really was expecting more boring shit - studying, sleeping, eating a snack or some shit. What he was not expecting was to see Morty taking a deep, meditative breath with a rolled up dollar between his fingers, trying to suppress a smile but failing. A boy behind him who looked like a… a fucking K-pop idol whistled.

"That's like, a gram, bro. Pleeeeaaasse don't die on us, M, Emmy boy," he whined, and leaned down to give Morty an awkward looking hug from behind, knocking Morty forward a bit with the force.

"Bro! Oh Jesus, y- you almost spilled the shit. I would've been so beefed, Julian, b - be fucking careful," Morty grumbled, but patted the arms of the boy comfortingly. "And I'm not gonna die, Jules. The only one who's gonnnna DIE," Morty exclaimed with a pointed look at a dark-skinned girl who rolled her eyes. "Is thissss Tisha bitch."

He leaned forward, ready to take the line, but paused. "I'm not doing this in one nostril, I'm going half-half." And that he did. Rick watched, astonished, as the white powder disappeared through the dollar into Morty's face. They group cheered as quietly as they could to not bring attention to themselves.

"I'm proud of you, Mortimer," Tisha smirked and clapped him on the back. Morty sucked the residual cocaine through his nostril and gagged as it filled his throat.

"Thanks Tish, you didn't do too sh - shab - bad yourself. I only beat you by liiike… point… one?" Morty giggled. He always GIGGLES when he's fucked up. He already felt the coke hitting him, and it made him surge with a newfound energy. "Anyway, go buy us a bottle, loser."

"Fuck you." Tisha laughed and all three of them went to buy a bottle of champagne.

Morty sat back in his chair with a pleased sigh, and gazed up at the ceiling. "I'm the fuckin' winnnnneerrr, bitch,"

Rick muted the stream, still staring at Morty's happily fucked up face as he stubbed the cigarette out on his carpet. He couldn't believe what he just saw. Well, he kind of could - it was college, he shouldn't be that surprised. But it was Morty. Morty isn't like that. Morty is a shy, repressed little freak with no friends. He's the kind of motherfucker that takes a hit off the blunt and thinks everyone is out to get him. Or he's not, and Rick seriously underestimated just how much even a Morty can change. Was it just him growing up? Maturing? Was it school? Was it him being free to grow without Rick?

This was fucked up. Seriously fucked up. Morty is supposed to be okay. That's why Rick left in the first place. He wanted him to be happy. He took away the memories of trauma, the memories of death and destruction… the memories of the two of them… to make him happy. Set him free like a dog from his fucked up master. The luckiest Morty in existence, this one. No normal Rick would let him go like that - especially for the sake of his happiness.

But fuck. He did. And now… it wouldn't have been that bad if it was a little bit of blow with the drinking. But Morty was doing - fuck, he was doing exactly what Rick was doing that night. They were just as fucked up as the other right now. And that's the last path Rick wanted his Morty going down. Especially since he seemed a bit more accustomed to it than your average college kid. He did a fucking GRAM in one line. Rick didn't even do shit like that unless he was trying to go really hard. The gooey alien at the bar would've been more impressed by MORTY than him. That's a terrible sign.

And Seattle coke fucking sucked anyway. There was probably more laundry detergent in there than cocaine. Cocaine to Seattle is like what weed is to most of the east coast of America. Morty was fucking stupid for getting off on that shit. It was probably re-rocked with meth too.

So… what does he do? He can't go back. It's too risky, too dangerous. Morty could recognize him. Yeah, the memory gun is pretty much infallible. But there's rare cases of flashbacks with people, and they have such a history together. Things beyond Morty's imagining, years of space travel and adventures could sneak through the cracks of his mind.

But what were the chances of that, really? Even if that were to happen, all it would take is a little layering on of the memory gun again, and those memories would be eradicated permanently. Even his subconscious mind wouldn't remember a thing. And besides, he wouldn't be getting friendly with Morty. Fuck no. Just keeping an eye on him, from a distance. Yeah. He could do that. He really could. But how?

Oh shit. Rick's eyes widened and he actually fucking laughed out loud. There was totally a way. Of course there was.

Rick always found a way.

Morty couldn't sleep. Too much fucking blow.

He grumbled to himself and wondered how Julian was sleeping soundly in the bed next to him. Morty can't do that shit. Most normal people can't. But Julian wasn't normal. Morty chuckled, then groaned again.

He wondered why he did this all the time. It was fun, definitely. Exhilarating. The normal reasons people party.

But… sometimes… he just felt like he needed it. He winced at that admission, but it was true. He needed it like air in his fucking lungs sometimes. There was just… something missing. Something. Is missing...

But what?

Morty didn't want to rack his brain again, like he did almost every night in his bed staring into the darkness (especially when he was fucked up). He figured it was something indescribable - unable to place. Everyone has a void. Everyone has something they're trying to fill up. It's existential or something. Spiritual, even. A part of life. Inescapable.

He wasn't worried. It's not anything out of the ordinary. He's a normal kid, going to a normal school with… somewhat… normal friends. He used to not even have friends! He's never had a single friend before college. He's doing better than he was in his earlier days, that's for sure.

He's fine. He'll be fine. The hole inside his chest can stay vacant and dark as it had for so many years. It was a part of him. There was nothing unnatural about feeling incomplete - everyone did, at one point or another. Especially as a young adult still trying to find their way through life. He will fill that gaping hole artificially until it overflows. He will walk with that careful consciousness, aware that life is imperfect and so is his soul. There's nothing wrong with that.

He wasn't worried.


	4. Paper Hearts

It didn't take long for Rick to put his plan into action. In fact, he could hardly even call it a plan. Like many things Rick did, it started off with an idea and was then executed in a quick succession of simple steps. Things like infiltrating the ranks of the University of Washington and effectively becoming the new professor of cosmology was child's play.

Step one was to wait for the current professor (hilariously named "Mr. Cox") to come home to his condo for the night and inject him with a dangerous amount of Thiopental, instantaneously rendering him unconscious.

Step two was obvious - a classic dimensional switcheroo. Mr. Cox of dimension C-137 would wake up in dimension Beta-D-40 in an (almost) identical condo - terrified and confused, yes, but unharmed. The only divergence in this new dimension would be a moderate change in varying political issues - ones Mr. Cox would swear he was going senile by, considering he kept avid watch of the world's events and had apparently not grasped them correctly. There would be a strange, faded brown stain on the underside of his mattress (Rick made sure to clean it and flip it over) that he would never notice. That was from the original Beta-D-40 Mr. Cox slitting his wrists and creating a wonderful opportunity for Rick. Said Mr. Cox was then placed in the C-137 dimension, and with a little synthesized blood matching his DNA, his suicide was effectively staged.

Step three was to wait until his body got found to the horror of all his friends and family, the faculty, etc. However, despite the tragedy, the UW was a goddamn institute of higher education. They needed a replacement.

Step four - become the new motherfucking professor.

It didn't take much - the community of UW thanked their lucky stars to be graced with such an astounding figure in the scientific community. Rick thanked his own lucky stars for bothering to get a degree at one point and grace the world with his genius breakthroughs in multiple theories. Social wealth, bitch. He had that shit.

All he had to do now was… teach. Rick just hoped he wouldn't blow his brains out due to boredom. Perhaps he'd invent some sort of mechanism or artificial intelligence to grade everyone's work. That would somewhat relieve him of the drudgery.

The worst part was Morty wouldn't even be able to be fucking grateful for all the stupid shit he was doing to assist his crackhead ass.

Well. Rick's done crazier than this for Morty. Like sacrificing himself when they broke time, intent on floating through hypothetical cat-space for him indefinitely - or definitely, you can't really know - that was pretty wild.

Not only that, but it was uncanny. It didn't follow his typical code of self-preservation. Rick excelled beyond every other lifeform in the universe in terms of logic. He excelled in matters of strategy. Improvisation. Cataloguing and making sense of factual information - one of those facts being that he was a fucking genius at pretty much everything, more so than pretty much everyone.

All that emotional bullshit, though? Family? Love?

That was different.

Irrational.

For once, Rick didn't know how this was going to play out for himself. Morty would be unaware, he would make sure of that. But… while Rick's heart may have been a pit from some unripe fruit, hardened and inedible, his soul was intact. Whatever you consider a soul to be - a driving force, a consciousness, the last semblance of emotion encased in the slowly rotting body of a living organism - it was there. However small. And Rick's was a frayed knot, close to snapping. Not even science can detect and measure the intricacies of something like that. Rick's a genius. He would know. But if he let his tiny, withered soul do the walking this far already...

He might actually be fucked.

Morty still couldn't believe Mr. Cox committed suicide. The school tried to keep the circumstances of his death on the downlow, but of course the media came through as always.

It was just bizarre. Mr. Cox, though an inconsequential man, never seemed depressed or even that wearied by life. Mostly he seemed a bit bored. Even then, his eyes lit up with passion whenever he spoke to the class. He didn't seem like the type to kill himself. Though Morty supposed you never really know. He was old, probably widowed. It happened all the time. Still it was depressing. Mr. Cox was a nice enough man, he didn't deserve to die. Morty seemed to have a weakness for men that were sad and old. They were just so… well… sad and old.

Of course, the class had to continue, and it was sitting in the silent, grim classroom with his peers three days later that he saw Professor Sanchez for the first time.

The first thing Morty noticed was how good he looked for his age. He didn't look a day over fifty - although something unexplainable told him he must have been around sixty. He had wild, white hair that appeared blue in the light. He had a strong jaw and hard set eyes.

The second thing he noticed was he wore a fucking labcoat, like he just came back from mixing a bunch of chemicals together. Maybe he could accessorize with some lab goggles around his neck, Morty thought, almost snorting out loud.

The third thing he noticed was how FUCKING intimidating he was. He all but threw the doors open, silencing the last remaining whispers among the students with the abrasive sound. He walked with purpose, quickly and fluidly like a jaguar on the hunt. The most striking thing, however, was his expression. Entirely stoic. The kind of emotionless look that spoke of more than being zoned out or bored. It was a blank slate that somehow expressed, "I am filled to the brim, I have seen and done so many things, and still you will never know about any of them".

He looked like a guy you'd cross the street to get away from.

Morty glanced around the classroom quickly to see if any of his classmates noticed this. It looked like they were struck by something, that's for sure. Everyone's attention was intently focused on the stranger.

The man scribbled his name on the whiteboard. "Rick Sanchez". Then he turned to face the class, fixing them all with an almost bored look.

"Alright, kids, so I know your old professor… w - w - what was his name again? Mr. Cox? Jesus, I would kill myself too," - gasps all around, Morty's mouth dropped open - "yeah, yeah I know. I'm sorry that he, you know, offed himself. I'm sure you guys are pretty - pretty broken up about that, knowing him so dearly over the course of an ENTIRE semester, wow. Personally, I'm not so affected. I didn't know the guy. Anyway, as you can see, my name is Rick Sanchez, you can call me whatever the fuck you want, I - I don't care. As long as you're not fucking around in class, you know, you're just here to learn some shit. So. Let's just jump right into it," as he finished his introduction, he took a swig from a flask and burped loudly, then turned around again to start writing.

The whole class sat in shocked silence. No one had the balls to yell or scream at him about his horrifying disregard for Mr. Cox's life. It was like everyone's brains were short-circuiting. Who did this guy think he was?

"Okay, so I know Mr. Cox - " Rick paused to snort " - jesus, I will never get over that - well, I'm assuming he taught you guys about the start of the universe? The Big Bang? I - Is that ringing a bell?"

A spattering of nods, a small "yeah".

"So I'm also going to assume he taught you about the eventual fate of the universe?"

Silence. Wary looks.

Rick hid his face behind his palm and sighed. "Jesus fucking - okay, that's - that's just stupid. What did - what did he teach you after the Big Bang?"

A couple hands went into the air, including Morty's. "Yeah, you," Rick pointed at some brown haired chick with glasses.

"Primordial background radiation…"

"God. Okay. That's - wow. You guys are lucky I'm here." He drew a crude graph with some vectors on it. "Look, so - this is just your basic overview, by the way, it's way more fucking complex than this - scientists used to think the universe's expansion was slowing down due to gravity, right? Newton obviously was the one to really - really back up this theory. Makes sense, right?" Rick's eyes scanned the class. Morty jerked when his eyes went over his. They didn't linger or anything. But fuck. He could tell how blue they were from his seat in the back.

"So. Matter has a gravitational pull. That's why the universe can only expand for so long, right? Wrong. Very wrong. It has been observed that galaxies are getting FARTHER away from each other, stars are dimmer than they were originally - this is what tells us that the universe is expanding. You guys - you know Einstein's theory of general relativity? I - It tells us gravity can repel, kind of. If I'm gonna - gonna dumb that down for you. That's how we know about dark energy - an 'invisible'," Rick air quotes this and rolls his eyes, "force that is propelling the universe's expansion. The universe is growing - it's actually accelerating in speed. It's growing faster and faster. You guys should know this."

Rick paused to drink in the expressions of his students. They looked like they had heard it before, but were still paying close attention. He smirked.

"Pretty fucking cool still, yeah?" A few giggles. "Well, what you don't know it what this means for the fate of the universe." Silence again. "Y - yeah, that got your attention, huh? There's two major theories: The Big Crunch, and The Big Rip. The Big Crunch is where the universe is basically gonna collapse in on itself because the gravitational pull of matter will be enough to override the repulsive nature of dark energy. Think - think of it like this. You're pulling a rubber band, it's stretching - that's our universe expanding now, still being propelled by the Big Bang. When you let go, the tension of the band overrides your - your pulling… and it snaps back. Okay, that was - that was kind of a shitty fucking metaphor. You get the idea though, right? I mean, i - i - it's called The Big Crunch. Pretty self explanatory." Rick picked up a random piece of paper off the desk and crushed it into a ball. "Crunch."

The class was enraptured once again, looks ranging from existential crisis to awed wonder. Rick smirked again, then hid it behind his flask. He gave them a moment to process all of this, then gave another searching look. He couldn't help looking at Morty again quickly, which he regretted. He was not prepared for the painful twinge in his chest caused by looking into those eyes. Right there, right fucking there - that was the childish look he remembered. Naive. Caught up in the magic. Filled with love, filled with lust - oh shit - fuck, okay, "So that's The Big Crunch theory. Now, The Big Rip is like, basically if the opposite happens. If the repulsive force is strong enough to keep accelerating the universe, eventually everything is just gonna - just gonna fucking rip apart. Like, galaxies, stars, fucking - people, your girlfriend - everything, really - it's just gonna get ripped apart by the force of the universe, atom by atom. Fucking crazy, really. I - I mean, can you imagine? You're just walking your dog, and everything just gets pulled apart." Rick unraveled the ball of paper in his hands and started shredding it, letting little pieces fly to the floor. "Rip."

The class looked horrified again. Someone timidly raised their hand.

"Yeah?" Rick called on them.

"Are those… the only theories out there?"

Rick rolled his eyes. "Some idealists think it'll even itself out and just stop expanding and everything will be fine. I tend to disagree, as most scientists do. Here, let's - let's just get more in depth with this." He started scribbling on the whiteboard again.

Morty was… intoxicated.

He was always in love with this class - but this man, this crazy, eccentric douchebag of a man pulled him along the tales of space like Mr. Cox never did. As Rick continued rambling, pausing at moments to look at them wide-eyed and frantic, spilling liquor occasionally, Morty realized Rick was just like him - if not more so. His earlier dark demeanor spoke nothing of joy or excitement. Now? He had begun to pace around the classroom, going from one topic to the next and somehow having it make sense. Morty felt like Rick was that guy from A Beautiful Mind - fucking formulas and numbers flying across his vision and shit.

He could not take his eyes off of him. Rick was a star himself, fire, blazing. Something… Morty wondered… if right now, his heart was ripping or crunching. It felt like both. It was so fucking weird. Why? Why was his chest…?

It felt like only fifteen minutes had passed by the time the hour was over.

"Oh shit, we're five minutes over time." Everyone looked around, surprised. No one had noticed class had ended. "Alright kids, no fucking - no homework. You hate doing it. I hate grading it. Just read - I, I don't know - read some of the textbook, if you feel like it. We'll have a test… soon." With that, Rick unscrewed his flask once more and seemed to take the longest pull of all as he flopped into the black spinning chair behind his desk.

As everyone got up to leave, he held up a finger. "Oh, and if any of you decide to be snitches and tell anyone I'm drinking and swearing in here - y - you're gonna fail this course and probably get your computer hacked by me. I - I - I'm not fucking around, here. You'll be ruined."

No one doubted him.

As Morty left the classroom, he couldn't help but imagine Rick's eyes on him as he left, so strongly it almost felt real. He wanted a friendship with this man like never before, like nothing else he had ever wanted. He was so… raw. Unadulterated. Brash. And intelligent beyond anyone he's ever personally met. Not to mention the rudest, and certainly craziest.

And he loved the same thing he did. Space. The universe. The beginning of it. The fate of it.

Morty knew he liked him… but he couldn't help hating him too. He was incredibly insensitive. Only a monster would disregard someone's life like that, seriously. It was horrible. Regardless… his presence seemed to pull at him like magnetism.

"What an asshole… but he really knows his stuff…"

"Yeah, he's smart, but… suicide isn't a joke…"

"That's the hottest old guy I've ever fucking seen..."

"He's hilarious, oh my god… did you know he's famous…?"

The whispers of his classmates sent Morty's heart into a weird, harsh beating. Rick circled his skull, pounded on it.

Morty couldn't wait for the next class.


	5. Ouch

That night, Morty had a peculiar dream.

It was peculiar because of the way he entered the dream. Like many nights before, as he was settling into sleep, he slowly but surely lost the sense of his physical body while his mind remained conscious.

Like many nights before, he soon felt as though he was gradually floating up to the ceiling with the likeness of hot air, his body a buoy in a sea of invisible dark energy.

UNLIKE many nights before, Morty's mind remained awake so long that his dream body phased through the ceiling. He had never made it that far.

His eyes - how were they really his eyes, unless he was really floating? - opened just in time to witness himself doing this. His intangible body broke through the ceiling and then he was flying, flying before he knew it through the night sky above the dorms.

Although Morty would only find out exactly what the experience was the next morning when he Googled it (an out-of-body experience, or a lucid dream) he was surprisingly calm at the circumstances. He felt awake even though on some level he knew he was not.

He gained control of his movement and began soaring up where his body had always tried to take him when he was on the verge of sleep. The wind buffeted his face but his eyes did not water.

He flew up and up and up and UP until the sky grew cold and a glowing green light appeared before him which he breached, laughing, with total abandon and SUDDENLY -

\- he was amongst the stars.

He had never felt anything like it.

He had seen pictures of space, obviously. And he knew what he was currently seeing was in no way accurate to what was really so close to Earth's atmosphere - he knew his mind had fabricated what was around him.

That didn't matter. What Morty saw, what he SAW was beyond anything he or any textbook could have independently imagined.

He first flew by the moon. It seemed so SMALL when gazed at from Earth, but as Morty approached the pearlescent titan, it overwhelmed him like a mountain which he had to crane his neck to look up at. He felt its presence thrumming like a drum in his stomach - its energy demanded his respect, cried out that it moved the tides and lit the sky and goaded men to act like lunatics.

The craters that pitted its glowing surface seemed to wink at Morty as though sensing his awe.

He moved past the intimidating moon, dodged a satellite and suddenly everything he looked upon was pink and orange and yellow and blindingly bright. Through squinted eyes he decided he was in a cloud of some sort, so immense in size it consumed his entire vision.

He opened his mouth to inhale the haze and… it tasted... it tasted like raspberries, and smelled of rum.

Morty laughed and laughed and swung his arms and could not, for the life of him, bring himself to shut his eyes with the joy of it. He could not be swayed by riches or power or any sort of pleasure to leave his astral wonderland. There was nothing he wanted more than to be there, in that moment, floating and flying and blinking at the multitude of stars and soaring and soaring and -

\- Morty woke up to the blare of his alarm which he smashed his hand on top of viciously. How that dreamscape journey lasted eight hours of real, waking time, he did not know. It felt like minutes.

All he knew was the frantic pounding of his heart and the distant planet he had just spotted before he was ripped from the dream that burned a bright imprint into the back of his eyelids.

And then his wonder succumbed to the familiar empty feeling he was so accustomed to these days. It was magnified by the loss of something so impossibly beautiful that was right before his eyes, something that now LITERALLY filled his dreams and taunted him cruelly with its false tangibility.

Morty reached for the forlorn bottle of vodka that lived underneath his bed. He ignored Julian's "oh my god, Morty, you're a fucking animal" and took a few gulps before going to the bathroom to prepare for the day ahead.

Before Rick's class, Abbie and Tisha ran into Morty. When he greeted them, Tisha took a step back and Abbie wrinkled her nose.

"Oh my - are you drunk?"

"Bro."

Morty shrugged. "Mouthwash."

Tisha rolled her eyes and Abbie levelled him with a look. "Riiight." Morty grinned at them. He really wasn't drunk, anyway. He was nicely buzzed.

"Well," Abbie continued wryly, "we were planning on getting you and Jules to come to our dorm tonight to drink and play some games or whatever but you seem to have gotten a headstart on us."

Morty chuckled. "It's cause I'm a badass."

"It's cause you're an alcoholic," Tisha piped up, to which Morty shrugged again. "Anyway, be there or I'm rescinding your title of The One True Savage."

"You wouldn't."

"Try me, bitch." Tisha turned to leave and Abbie followed after shooting a smile at Morty.

Morty hmmed to himself and found his way to Cosmology for Rick's second class. For some reason his palms were sweating and his stomach was filled with butterflies. Being in Rick's presence made him nervous. His energy was like the moon up close - immense, blinding, demanding.

When he walked in, his anxiety spiked like a bolt of lightning when he realized he was a minute late.

"Glad to see you could join us today," Rick grumbled at him.

Oops. The blood rushed to his face.

"S - sorry," Morty murmured and all but ran to the seat closest to him, trying with an effort that was futile to ignore the stares of his classmates. He was in the front row now, much closer than he was yesterday.

"Yeah, you should be," Rick replied sharply without looking at him. "As I was saying, today we're gonna - we're gonna… learn about fucking… black holes. Because they're crazy and you guys really gotta take a break from the boring shit to keep yourselves interested." He gestured around the class vaguely and took a hearty sip from his flask. When he took an unbalanced step back, Morty realized Rick was actually drunk and had to stop himself from laughing. That made two alcoholics in the classroom at least.

"There's three different kinds, there's stellar black holes - small, boring if you ask me. They're just from collapsed stars - are you motherfuckers taking notes?" He narrowed his eyes at them and everyone scrambled to retrieve notebooks and pens, including Morty. He dropped his pen on the ground with a soft clatter and nervously snatched it up, expecting to be reprimanded for some reason. Obviously an idiotic thought as Rick didn't spare him a glance.

"Right, so, stellar. They're actually - they're like three times the mass of the Sun but they're so dense they're the size of a city. There's hundreds of millions of them in the Milky Way. That's - that's fucking crazy, yeah? I mean, that's a lot of little death holes waiting to gobble your ass up. If you're flying in a - a spaceship, or something, you really gotta look out for those little fuckers. Not even light can escape from them. And time slows down, I mean, these are LITERAL rips in spacetime. If you fly around a black hole you're gonna - you're gonna experience time slower."

He paused and wobbled for a second. "W - where was I? Oh yeah. Stellar. That last part applies to all black holes, by the way. The spacetime shit and the - the light not escaping. Yeah. So then there's supermassive black holes - can anyone - does anyone know why they're called that?"

Silence for a good five seconds before someone raised their hand. "Because… they're super massive?"

Rick snorted. "Glad to see there's one person in this class who isn't a fucking idiot. Obviously. I mean, seriously guys? Take a fucking linguistics course. Yeah, because they're super massive. Jesus. T - t - that was a test, guys. Not everything in this class is gonna blow your fucking minds."

Offended murmurs.

Rick rolled his eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Supermassive black holes are undoubtedly the coolest of all three. They are millions or BILLIONS of times bigger than the Sun. You can't even imagine that, I can't, because the human mind is incapable of comprehending the magnitude of that. You can't even comprehend how big the Sun is, let alone billions of it. So these black holes, I mean, i - i - it's fucking insane. And scientists, they don't even KNOW how they exist. There's theories - a cluster of stars collapsing all at once, or stellar black holes combining. But shit, these things are so huge, it's like… what's going on, you know?" Rick stopped to let them write.

Morty was copying it all down, but his mind was elsewhere. Black holes.

"Then there's intermediate black holes…" Morty heard Rick's voice continue but he stopped writing. If there was a black hole inside of Morty in which no light could escape, he was sure it was supermassive. It's always been there. Always.

"So huge… it doesn't suck, it just has immense gravity… torn apart… string theory… you guys ever seen the movie 'Interstellar'…?"

Morty's insides were being swallowed slowly, but surely, by a black hole. A pitch black, grinning monster was eating him.

Why was it that he started to feel like this during class? In his dreams? Like suddenly he was lost in space, killed by it, in love with it to the point of sacrifice.

The hole inside of him was growing. It reached his fingertips. It reached the top of his head, enveloped his vision, roared in his ears -

 _Fuck fuck fuck he was going to die they were going to die this is it this is it_

What?

 _It's coming it's coming it's coming it's right in front of us it's huge it's dark we are going to fall right into it and burn to death_

 _this is it, goodbye, i love you_

 _then suddenly instead of falling into it they were hurtling AROUND it, swinging around like a boomerang and were flung full force in the opposite direction of where they came at a terrifying speed._

 _But it was okay. They escaped, they weren't dead, holy fucking shit they weren't dead they were alive the behemoth was behind them the damning, impossible to look at nothingness of the black hole smaller and smaller behind them -_

 _"That was too close," Rick sighed and Morty sobbed._

Then he gasped.

"Dude, are you - whoa, are you okay? You look like you're going to puke. Please don't. I will definitely puke if you do." Rick… and everyone else… was staring at him.

Unsure of what Morty did to elicit this kind of reaction, he glanced around wildly while trying to breathe. He turned to face Rick again, who just kept staring at him. Waiting.

"I'm… fine," Morty managed to choke out. "Ac - um, actually, I'm not - can I leave? Professor Rick," he tacked on quickly. "I definitely might puke. In fact, I think it - oh god - " Morty exaggerated a gagging noise and Rick stepped back, horrified.

"Oh - for fuck's - get out of here, ew. I'll email you about what you missed, just - just leave."

"Thank you, thank you sir," Morty mumbled, gathered up his stuff as quickly as he could with everyone's eyes on him (the girl next to him had angled her body as far away from him as she could and it made things worse) and left as quickly at he had came in late.

Then he started running down the hall as if he could leave what just happened behind forever.

What the fuck was that? Did he just have a stroke? Seriously, why did he just think that? What was happening to his body? What was happening… to his mind?

Why was Rick next to him in that hallucination? Did he leave that much of an impression on Morty? That he triggered fucked up delusions?

A black hole. Imminent death. Rick.

Morty did feel like he was going to puke this time, actually, and the running didn't help. He stumbled to a stop, puked in a trash can, feeling the acrid remainder of the morning vodka in his nose and throat. If he drank, how come he felt so sober right now?

He needed to talk to someone. Anyone. Something was wrong with his head, seriously.

Abbie had a class right now. Julian was free, probably, but… Morty didn't want to talk to him for some reason. It was hard to get really serious with him. And there was something about the thought of him right now that brought back Morty's nausea.

Tisha, though. Tisha was free. Tisha was rough around the edges but always knew, she always knew what was going on somehow.

Morty dialled her number. It rang once before she picked up. "Why the fuck aren't you in class right now?" Morty imagined her eyes narrowing.

He took a shaky breath. "Tish… I…" Silence on both ends. "Can I come over early?"

Something in his voice probably resonated with her. "Yeah," she said, softer this time. "I'm in the dorm, come over."

"Thank you," Morty whispered, cursing himself for feeling and sounding weak. He hung up and started on his way.


	6. Fear

By the time Morty made it to Tisha's dorm, he'd calmed his racing heart and smiled sheepishly at her when she swung the door open. Face impassive, she ushered him in and immediately turned to face him with crossed arms and an expectant brow raised.

"So?" Was all she said.

Morty frightfully realized explaining the whole situation would make him sound… not crazy, but not too far away from it. He decided to go with the half-truth.

Morty opened his mouth a few times, searching for words. He settled on, "let's sit down, first," to which Tisha nodded and they both sat on the black leather sofa against the wall with the window. Morty looked nervously out to the bodies walking outside on the grass like insects with raincoats.

Morty swallowed and began without meeting Tisha's eyes.

"So… I had this… weird thing happen with a… someone I don't know very well, I've just met them and for some reason," the words suddenly began to spill from his mouth, "for some reason, I had the strangest… vision of them, it was like a daydream, but it was so - so real, and I got really… sick… I just," Morty sighed and hid his face in his hands before remembering himself. "It's hard to explain. I like, literally blacked out almost, i - it was like a flash of a dream while I was awake. And I've felt weird, or drawn? To this person before that, but they like… triggered me. Bro," Morty tacked on to his rambling. "It was just fucking bizarre, I've never experienced anything close to that i - in my life before." Morty finally met Tisha's eyes, which were brown and just staring at him.

"Morty," she said slowly, "why do you think that happened?"

Morty snorted. "I don't know, maybe I'm fucking crazy? Maybe I… I…" Morty strained himself to think of anything else. "Dude, I can't think of any other explanation besides the possibility that I'm crazy."

Tisha smiled softly. "Maybe..."

"Definitely," Morty grumbled. Tisha rolled her eyes.

"...or maybe," she continued, "there's a reason. Maybe you're meant to get close to this person."

Morty looked at Tisha incredulously. Her face was solemn.

"What, like destiny? Fate?" Morty colored his voice with skepticism. Tisha shrugged.

Another thought struck Morty. "I don't think… I'm supposed to know him." Morty looked down at his jeans and ripped out a stray thread. "The dream, or whatever, it was…" He shuddered. "Disturbing."

Tisha thought for a moment. "Well, I don't fuckin' know dude," she settled on and put her hands in front of her helplessly. Morty snorted again at this. "Fuck, maybe the person symbolizes something from your past, maybe you have a brain tumor. Maybe it's a one time thing. I'd say either stay away from the person... " She paused. "Or get closer to them. Even if it's a bad reason… it's a reason, and you should figure it out for yourself."

Morty paled. Oh God. Stay away? Like, drop the class? He couldn't. He wouldn't.

"Hey," Tisha said suddenly, like the thought had just occurred. "Who is this person anyway? Are they in one of your classes?" Jesus, Tisha's always reading fucking minds.

"Uh - um, yes, yup. Yeah. I don't - I don't wanna drop the class." Morty said, pulling nervously at more loose threads on his jeans. Well, it wasn't a lie. Rick was in his class. As the teacher.

Tisha seemed to sense his anxiety and narrowed her eyes. Morty smiled pleasantly at her. They had a stare-off for a good ten seconds before they started laughing helplessly at each other's serious expressions. It took them awhile to calm down.

"Morty, if I were you, I would follow what my gut told me to do." Tisha finally said, breaking the silence that fell after they came down from their laughing fit.

Morty considered this. He wasn't sure what his gut was saying. He couldn't help but feel drawn to his erratic, bad-mouthed, cold-hearted professor in a way that didn't make sense. It was like, everything in his brain was telling him to get the fuck away from him but his body couldn't help but be magnetized to him like opposite poles inching together.

One second he was looking at Rick and feeling like they were puzzle pieces that fit, that were carefully crafted by a jolly toy constructor - the next moment Rick's raspy voice was plucking at Morty's stomach like a harp, making him ill in an indescribable way.

His gut was obviously fucking confused.

He decided to say, "alright, Tisha, I will," instead of all that.

She smiled and said, "good," but her eyes said, "I'm worried about you."

Abbie and Julian arrived a few hours later when Tisha and Morty were already drunk. They brought chips and a 12-pack of Rainier - the Pacific Northwest's piss beer. They played stupid games and listened to rap music.

"You can catch me, Rhi, in the new La Ferrarrrrrrrr," Tisha sang and busted out laughing with Morty when they heard Abbie and Julian spluttering as they shotgunned beers in the bathtub. Then Morty had to convince Tisha that no, smoking a cigarette out of the window in your dorm is not a good idea. Tisha grumbled at him as Abbie and Julian stumbled back in with wet shirts, belching loudly and crushing their empty cans.

Morty realized through a haze of drunkenness that Abbie really did like Julian. She couldn't take her eyes off of him for long and she laughed far too loudly at his jokes. Morty felt bad for her, knew that Julian didn't feel for her like that. Abbie was his friend too, after all, and she was cute and kind and deserved someone who could give that to her.

He didn't blame her for liking Julian though. He was hot and loud and stylish. They seemed like they would make a good pair, actually - maybe Morty could suggest him giving her a chance. Maybe he could give him a chance.

Morty blinked at the turn his thoughts took. Um, no? He must me really fucked up to even think that?

Goddamn.

He was dangerously fucked up. He should probably leave before he says/does something absolutely idiotic.

"Oh wow," Morty looked at nothing in particular, but he did imagine he was seeing a clock, so that was good enough, "would you look at the time. I should, should… I should get going. I'm…. tired. Yeah." He tapped Julian on the shoulder, who was now laying in both Tisha and Abbie's laps - the latter of which looked extremely pleased at the situation. "Are you gonna stay here longer?"

Julian nodded his head vigorously, jiggling Tisha's thigh in the process.

"Aaaalright," Morty sang, "See ya sooooon bitch," and he stumbled out the door, closed it behind him, took a few steps, and ran right into...

...Rick FUCKING Sanchez.

Morty sprang back like a startled cat and stared in open-mouthed amazement.

Was this some kind of sick joke? A movie? He nearly looked around for hidden cameras before realizing he had acted just schizoid enough for today and probably shouldn't exceed his quota.

"Dude," Morty blurted. "I was just thinking about you."

He nearly killed himself then and there. Why the fuck did he say that? That's so weird, Rick is gonna think he's a freak. Morty's not so sure he isn't. Why did he say that?

He wobbled a little on his feet and remembered. Oh, yeah. He was fucking wasted.

Rick looked extremely unamused, his eyes glinting silver as he stared down at Morty with narrowed eyes. Morty gulped. God, this man was terrifying.

"Why?" Rick asked simply.

Morty blinked. Why? Huh. Um.

"B - because," Morty started without thinking, "I…" Holy shit, he can't tell him the truth, about his fucking hallucination, "I… I think…" Morty swallowed again, mind drawing a blank.

Rick was obviously becoming… really impatient, if his expression was anything to go by. "Spit it out, kid," he snarled. "Or leave. I don't have the time to stand here listening to some drunk dumbass try and formulate basic words."

Wow. Morty's eye twitched, aggravated at Rick insulting him. Formulating basic words, says the guy who stutters every sentence.

"The fuck did you just - you little - " Rick looked way more angry now, huh, that was -

Oh my God.

Morty just said that out loud.

He just dissed his scary teacher with which his fate may be entwined with.

"Ohhh… shit," Morty whispered.

Rick still looked pissed. "Yeah, oh shit. You little - God," he ran a hand through his hair. "You - " he stopped. Morty looked on, confused. Damn, he was really bothered by what Morty said. Morty didn't think Rick would react that intensely.

"Your drunk ass owes me something," Rick snaps. "I - I don't know what it is yet, but you're - you're on my fucking shitlist, Morty. I mean, seriously, I don't like you. You're kinda a little bitch."

Morty groaned. That's just great. Good job, Morty.

Morty… huh, Rick learned his name really fast, he realized. Maybe he'd even made a good impression before being late today, and from just now especially. Too bad he tarnished it for himself. He didn't say anything else, just nodded and walked around Rick, intent on getting back to his dorm and maybe screaming into his pillow a couple times.

"Where are you going?" Rick snapped, grabbed his arm like a cobra would strike its prey, and Morty honestly felt like his whole body was electrocuted for a second starting from Rick's fingers that were clenched so tightly around his bicep.

He let out a garbled noise and ripped himself from his grasp, scared as shit, stared at Rick with wide eyes.

Why? Fucking WHY?

Why was this HAPPENING?

Rick mirrored his expression. He actually looked shocked. Slowly, he lowered his arm. He took a step back and schooled his face back into one of total indifference, like a goddamn actor.

It was clean. Practiced. He...

He knows something, Morty thought wildly, drunk and faint and afraid. He has to. He fucking has to.

But he couldn't. There's no way, no reason, no proof, no REASON.

His gut was fucking confused because -

\- he didn't know if he wanted Rick to grab him once more or if he wants to break Rick's arms so he can't ever reach out to him again.

Rick took a deep breath and spoke a little more quietly, his voice layered with strange implications that Morty could not place even if he was sober. "I can't let a student go back to their dorm alone when they're messed up like - like this. I'll walk back with you."

"I don't - " Morty started.

"Don't argue." Rick snapped.

Morty didn't argue, and they started walking, quickly, neither of them wanting to draw out the journey longer than necessary. They walked in silence through the hallway, then the next, and they went outside to walk to the other building where Morty's dorm was. It was dark, and raining.

Morty's heart was beating quickly. His skin was hot and he stared straight ahead and tried not to think of Rick who was following like a shadow.

And then, of course, because fate or destiny or whatever the fuck Murphy said that one time was deciding that this was the time in Morty's life it or they was going to absolutely FUCK with him, he slipped in the mud and his arms flailed and he fell backwards into Rick's arms.

And he felt like fucking fire and maybe cumming when he hit that broad chest and warm arms encircled him and held him so so tight and Morty forgot the ground beneath his feet and

"Watch where you're fucking walking."

And that was all it took for Morty to let out a strangled noise on the verge of a scream and kick his feet and fling himself onto all fours into the mud with a splash. He scrambled up quickly, wiping the mud off of his hands, swinging around to face Rick. Rick who was looking at him completely confounded.

"Bro, what - what the fuck is wrong with you?" Rick asked bluntly.

You, thought Morty.

Instead, he asked, "have we met?", knowing it was out of nowhere, and he probably sounded absolutely insane, and despite what Tisha said, Morty was starting to think he really was insane.

Rick was staring at him like he was crazy, too. "I'm your teacher," he said slowly. "We've met."

"No," Morty said. The rain was dripping from his hair and off his eyelashes and he wanted to cry with it. "Before. Before that. What I mean," Morty closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath, opened his eyes again to look resolutely at Rick, and asked, "have we ever met before now?"

There.

Right there, did Morty imagine that? On Rick's face…

...the terror.

"I - I highly doubt it," Rick said. His face was blank.

Too blank, Morty thought again, paranoid. Too blank.

"Right," he said. "My mistake."

They stared at each other.

"You're right in front now," Rick said obviously, gesturing to Morty's dorm which they were right in front of.

"H - huh. Yeah," Morty replied.

Rick took a step back, another, turned around and left without another word, sloshing his way back from where they came, lab coat soaked. Morty went inside.

That night, Morty had another dream, but it was not lucid and it had nothing to do with space.

Instead it had to do with Rick, and Rick's hands grabbing his arm and throwing him onto the desk and holding his hips in place while he fucked him hard. Morty was crying, he was so happy and sad, and Rick was groaning and hissing at him and talking about planets with his face screwed up, moaned "fuck, Morty, God, yes" -

\- and Morty woke up cumming hard and fast and crying into his pillow in the dark witching hour.


	7. Ghost Women

Tisha was right, Morty decided. He had to get closer to Rick.

The unsettling feeling that had wormed its way into his gut was clenched tight and impossible to ignore. The matter of whether the feeling was justified or not didn't matter to him.

The lack of a concrete answer is what was troubling Morty.

So, after Rick's next class (which seemed to go by much more slowly than it had previously), Morty decided to follow him.

It was only fair after the unseemly amount of times Rick's eyes had followed Morty during that class period. It was the eye movement of a cat that kept getting distracted, the wide beam of their vision drifting helplessly back to specks of dust which drifted lazily through a ray of sunlight.

Or maybe it was like a cat carefully watching a mouse. Morty did feel like prey every time Rick's blue eyes zoned in on him.

So, yeah.

Morty followed him.

He felt kind of like a spy. He was thankful he chose to forgo wearing his usual loud, yellow hoodie. He had opted instead that day to don a hand-knit drug rug that was a more conspicuous grey and brown. He felt both sneaky and stupid when he tugged a black beanie over his head to conceal his recognizable brown curls.

He had spent ages packing up his things after class to ensure that Rick left first. Morty tailed him around corners, through the campus lawn (the memory of mud slicking his jeans still stuck to his skin), and eventually down the sidewalk off campus.

On his way, he ran into Abbie. She smiled and opened her mouth, likely to call his name.

Startled, Morty shushed her and shook his head vigorously. This coupled with the expression on his face alarmed her and Morty left her gaping after him.

Eventually Morty found himself in the parking lot of an apartment in which Rick clearly resided. He was grateful he didn't have to get on a bus - it would be way harder to remain unseen like that.

It was harder to follow Rick closely in an apartment, but luckily Rick took the elevator, not the stairs. Morty slipped in the building just as the elevator doors closed, presumably with Rick inside (perfect timing, Morty felt slick as fuck) and he watched the numbers light up above the elevator as it made its ascent.

1.… 2…. 3. Pause. The elevator started to descend again.

So, level 3.

Embarrassed at himself, Morty realized at this moment how little he had thought out his spur of the moment espionage. What the fuck was he planning to do when he got up there? Knock on Rick's door and ask for a tour?

Well, he came this far already, Morty thought darkly to himself as he stepped into the elevator. Maybe he'll see the flash of a lab coat disappearing into one of the rooms. Then he'll know Rick's room number. For… what exactly? How would that information even be useful? It's not like he's brave enough to break in and take a look around.

Fuck it, whatever. He was here. Might as well.

He entered the elevator and pressed 3. His stomach lurched as it rose.

It took mere seconds to arrive at the third level and for the door to slide open.

It took less than half a second for Morty to try and take a step forward before his body was slammed back into the elevator, pinned against the wall with something solid constricting his windpipe.

That something turned out to be Rick's forearm which was pressed brutally against his throat. Rick had a furious look in his eye for just a moment before it was replaced by shock.

"Morty?" He asked incredulously. He loosened the pressure against Morty but didn't bring his arm down.

Morty gargled in response and clawed as hard as he could at the arm choking him.

Rick recoiled instantly.

"Ow! Fuck!" He hissed, shooting an accusatory look towards Morty, who had collapsed on the floor in a fit of explosive coughing. "You made me bleed. I'm fucking bleeding."

"Y - you…" Morty managed to rasp before his body was again racked by coughing. "How'd… you… k - know…?"

Rick glared at him. "I have a sixth sense, I wouldn't expect you to - to understand that. I fought in a war. I have Spidey Sense tingling out of my ass."

"This… isn't…" Morty gasped, finally getting his breath back. "...fucking… Vietnam." He finally stood and courageously returned Rick's glare.

"It wasn't Vietnam, and be that as it may, skills like that come in handy. Like if someone's FOLLOWING me," Rick sneered to which Morty's glare instantly deflated, "I'll be prepared."

Morty only then realized exactly what happened, and what he'd been caught doing.

He laughed nervously, furthering Rick's irritation.

"I - I… uh… I can... uh, I can explain?" He said hopefully. Did the corner of Rick's mouth twitch? Oh, yeah, it did.

Into a frown.

Rick waited.

"I…" Morty cleared his throat. It was sore now. "I… live here?"

Rick put his face in his hand and gave an exasperated groan. "Morty, if you're going to lie to someone, you can't - you don't phrase something you're trying to state as FACTUAL like it's a fucking question. Try - try it again, but more genuine and less entirely unconvincing."

Morty scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. "Wait, what?"

"Did I fucking stutter?"

Morty thought for a moment.

"...Yeah."

Rick really looked like he was going to kill him.

Morty put his hands up in front of him in an attempt to appear as submissive as possible. "Okay, okay! G - geez." The elevator door has closed behind them long ago. Rick was really quite close to him.

It was scary.

And vibratory.

Morty wasn't sure if he was kidding, but he tried it again. He took a deep breath and levelled Rick with what he hoped was a serious looking gaze.

"I live here."

Rick stared at him. And stared at him. Morty swallowed his anxiety which had reached a critical level.

Finally, Rick spoke.

"You… are still terrible at lying. Even when you try. Now, let's - "

"No!" Morty shouted suddenly. He pointed an accusatory finger right in Rick's face, whose eyes widened.

"What the f- "

"That. That right there," Morty said, shaking his finger in a manner that would probably look absurd to anyone walking by. "That - that is exactly what I'm talking about. You..."

He trailed off, lowered his arm, and could only meet Rick's gaze which looked reasonably concerned now.

He couldn't say what he was thinking. That Rick had said 'still'.

He was 'still' terrible at lying.

He knew what was meant by it. That it was his second attempt. And when he tried, he was still bad at it.

But it didn't sound like still. It sounded like 'still'. Like… after all this time.

Holy fuck.

Morty was probably, actually losing it.

The look on Rick's face...

...could he really be wrong? Is this man of no relation to him at all? Did he just seem familiar, look familiar, to someone he once knew?

It felt like Morty was being torn in half. A word came to his mind. Doublethink.

Morty just groaned and buried his face into his hands. Rick stared at him.

They stayed like that for a while.

Rick finally sighed in resignation and put his face in one hand, the other one perched on his hip.

"Look, I don't know exactly what's going on in your freaky little mind, but I'm gonna put a fucking stop to it. Now. Come on." Rick spun around and stalked down the hallway, lab coat billowing behind him.

Morty stood dumbly where he was for a moment before walking quickly after him to catch up.

Rick stopped in front of the door marked 321. He extracted a loud, enormous collection of keys and muttered to himself while trying to find the right one. Morty noted with astonishment how many there were - at least fifty, many of which were strange colors or shapes. The largest key was the length of Morty's wrist to his fingertips.

Rick finally unlocked the door and they went inside. It was barely furnished. The walls were a dull beige and the curtains blocked all the cloudy light outside from entering, save for a small sliver in the middle. The only thing bizarre about the place was the the sheer amount of tools, metal pieces, and various contraptions spread haphazardly across tables and bookshelves. Morty eyed warily some sort of half-built, electrical appliance that was humming faintly in the corner, blinking at them with variously colored bulbs of light.

"Oh," Rick said, sounding surprised. "I - yeah, I guess I - I was doing shit this morning. Anyway." He kicked an unfortunate screwdriver that had found its way in his path across the carpet as he strode to one of the bookshelves. Morty found his own way to a faux leather couch and sunk into it, watching.

Morty couldn't help staring at Rick's deft fingers sort themselves through the books. He shivered.

"Yeah, so," Rick stood up and made his way to Morty with a labelless book in tow. He held it by the spine over Morty's lap and shook it. The pages flapped loudly and a multitude of scraps came fluttering down, most of them landing on him.

Morty picked one up and realized they were photos, not scraps. Old polaroids to be precise. Currently he was staring into the laugh-crinkled eyes of a pretty, young, blonde woman. There were orange and brown leaves scattered through the air and ground around her. She wore a white scarf and hat. She had freckles.

Morty's eyebrows scrunched together. Curious, he picked up another. The same woman was pictured, this time pouting and glaring in mock annoyance at the photographer. She was standing in a kitchen, and there was something on the stove behind her.

He kept sifting through the photos, a quiet sense of discomfort filling him now. One was of the woman from a distance standing behind a wooden rail, looking out to a sunset over the ocean, her hair catching the light in a way that made it look like her head was on fire. There was one of her eating chocolate ice cream, some of which had found its way to the tip of her nose.

There was one with Rick. He was far younger in the photo - no wrinkles, no sneer, and, oh my god - a twinkling light in his eye. They stood close with their arms around each other, both grinning widely into the lens.

He looked… happy. Morty was amazed to see that Rick was donning a lab coat back then as well.

There was one of her in a hospital bed, smiling exhaustedly down at a screaming baby.

For some reason, it was at that point that Morty knew what had happened to them without Rick having to say anything.

Rick seemed to see this in his face when Morty raised his sad eyes to his impassive ones.

"Now, Morty," Rick said, voice blank as a sheet of paper. "Look at that." He pointed to the wall above Morty's head.

He craned his neck to look. A collection of college degrees, all from Cornell. An Ivy League school, Morty remembered faintly. He turned back to Rick slowly, fearing the cold look composed of icy eyes and tight lips.

"I grew up in New York all my life. That's where I met D - Lianna. I have never lived in Washington before now. I have never taught before now. I have never had a kid that lived past infancy. I have never, ever, EVER. Met you."

Morty shrunk underneath his hard gaze. Rick held it there for a moment before bending to snatch up the photographs from Morty's still hands. He returned them to the book, which he returned to the bookshelf, all the while Morty sat silent and shocked, staring at a vague, purple-pink light that emanated from the TV cabinet across from him.

When Rick turned back to face him, he looked tired.

"Go home, Morty."

He went home.

It was about a year and a month ago when Summer killed herself.

The police got called to her apartment building after what sounded like a gunshot shook the residents late at night. It didn't take the police long to find out where it had come from. When they kicked the door down to her bedroom, half of her head was gone. In her cold, clasped hand was a pistol that had been purchased a while ago - presumably for protection. The wall above her lifeless body was painted with a spray of blood and viscera so tall that it reached the ceiling.

Morty liked to imagine the blood splatter had come out looking like the wings of an angel. He was glad Summer had shot herself. There would have been no slow pain of pills or razors - she would not have suffered.

It was rare he had such desperately optimistic thoughts, though. Usually, when he thought of it, he would wait until Julian had long since fallen asleep, then allow his eyes to flood with tears and his body to rack with muffled sobs until his pillow was suitably damp and his lungs ached. Sometimes, he would bite into fingers until they bled, face scrunched up so hard the muscles of his cheeks would be sore in the morning. He would stare into the blinding light of his phone screen, shakily compose a text to his parents, then delete it all and fall into a restless sleep.

Most of the time, he would simply sit on his bed for long periods of time and stare into nothing, lost in the memories of her.

Now, Morty felt an unshakeable lack of anything. He felt numb like he usually was the times he sat and stared into nothing. The pain had not gotten easier - it had simply become commonplace. He felt a lot of nothing as he idly fingered the gold chain around his neck and walked home in the cold, afternoon air. The chain was an eighteenth birthday present from Summer.

"You have to have SOMETHING nice," she had rolled her eyes at him as she fastened it round his neck. "Because God forbid you look nice for once, Morty."

He thinks it was because of her boyfriend, Dave. Dave was six years older than her and a thousand times more cruel. She never said anything, never, ever, would never show vulnerability like that to Morty, not once she grew out of her teenage years and into the burdensome shadows of adulthood, and yet.

Morty knew. Expertly applied foundation and powder could only go so far in covering the dark bruises on her face. Long sleeved shirts could only staunch the blood for so long. Nights in front of the television on Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners could only light up the fading irises of her eye just enough.

And yet, Morty knew.

He knew that Dave was evil to the core. Feigned kindness and half-hearted hair ruffling could only go so far.

Unfortunately, he had an alibi for the night Summer died, and it was clearly a suicide to begin with. Morty had to despair though, had to despair that he was living free to this day. That he had gotten away with hurting Summer, if not in her death, then in the sequence of events that led up to it. He was sure Dave had killed her slowly. Poisoned her mentally.

Morty was going to poison him one day.

Until then, though, in this moment, Morty could only understand and work through the pain her loss had caused him.

Morty could understand how Rick felt.

Not losing a lover, sure. Not losing a child, yes. But losing someone wound around his heart like wire so tight that when it was cut the scarring was permanent and irreparable…

Yeah. He got that.

And so he felt bad that he had pushed him. He felt bad that he had unwittingly made Rick feel like he was left with no other option but to disclose his painful memories. Not that Rick was wrong in that assumption - Morty would likely not have left him alone. His stupid, pushy self would not have stopped. He would've followed a strange gut feeling and lapse in sanity than to accept a man at his word.

Now he would accept it.

It's not like the feeling had left him. Morty wasn't sure it ever would. If anything, now he felt like he knew Rick even more. This time, in an utterly tangible way. A way that was proven with gravestones and obituaries and empty bottles under beds.

He should leave Rick alone.


End file.
